ECC Memory Poll

[bcbgboy13]

I have been observing a lot the support forum and the other "hardware" discussions and it strikes me that there are no discussions regarding the ECC memory or the memory at all (if it is on sale at the moment then it is good to go!)

 

I am not going to comment out anything right now but would like to poll the forum of the importance of this subject and then in a week or two will post some info, data, etc.

 

One vote per user but you will be allowed to change your vote (please post if you do so).

 

PS. I am using ECC memory myself.

 

[Johnm]

I am running EEC memory, But... I have an I3-2100 CPU that does not support it.

 

I'll pick up a Xeon when i get some extra cash or I see  a sale.

[Rajahal]

I feel that if you can afford it ECC is never a bad idea, but if you can't afford it or want to avoid more limited options of motherboard, CPU, etc. then don't worry about it.  I've never heard of a case in which ECC really saved someone's data in an unRAID array, it is more of just a 'nice to know you have it' kind of thing.

 

I voted for 'not important at all,' but that seems a bit harsh.  What I really mean is that it is not important enough to fret over it or overhaul your system, but if you have the simple option of using it then you definitely should.

[grandprix]

I saved $326 by not going with a SuperMicro board which would have gone with a Xeon and ECC memory.. or four 2TB hard drives I suppose some/most would see it.

 

Do I have regrets?  Eh.. In hindsight, since I could afford it, I probably should have just gone for it.  Obviously the Xeon is a server CPU and when I think "server" I think of ECC memory, that's me though.  To change out my system to utilize ECC I would want to spend $485 (mobo, ram and cpu).  I've given thought to it.  If unRAID were based off of Ubuntu I probably would have, as I'm familiar with Ubuntu and would be comfortable with running more than just unRAID and/or unRAID related packages.  But, sporting "just" a Sempron 140, I'd rather keep overhead as low as possible.

 

I was actually contemplating this (hence knowing the figure$ right off the top of my head) upgrade to my server.  It may still happen, time will tell.

 

[Johnm]

I saved $326 by not going with a SuperMicro board which would have gone with a Xeon and ECC memory

 

I paid about $110 for 8gig (2x 4gig) of kingston unbuffered EEC for my supermicro board, that is about on par with non-ECC. the Xeon is about $100 more then the I3 i have. but the xeon has a lot more horsepower. I only went I3-2100 because i had it. no need to order the Xeon, right away if ever. I am sure my  unRAId will be fine without it.

 

My plan originally was norco 4224 running ESXi, on that 2008 and unraid. the 2008 gets 8 drives in raid6, the other 16 go to unraid.

Two storage servers in one box. I never got that far. but i have the motherboard that supports 4 raid / SAS cards and the memory, if i ever get the CPU. I might try it.

 

There is some comfort in ECC when you start getting to 40+TB arrays. one flipped 0 or 1 could be the downward spiral.. but I doubt it. I wont loose sleep if i have it or not. I just wanted the Supermicro board. I prefer the stability over a flaky desktop board for a server.

[cyrnel]

When I think customers I think, no doubt, ECC. When I think me, for the next server, I think, "of course I'll use ECC." Then when I'm deciding on parts that turns into "sure it'd be nice, but $$$."

 

There's a big difference between solving problems for paying customers (systems or infrastructure) and solving problems with my hobbies.

[vca]

From the manual for my ASUS M4A78L-M motherboard it appears that the Athlon AM2+ type processors can support ECC RAM, the BIOS has settings for it, so you don't need an expensive processor/motherboard.  That said, the documentation on it is very sparse ("ECC Mode: allows you to set the ECC mode. Configuration options: disabled, basic, good, super, max, user"). 

 

The reason I didn't consider using it was that I had ECC RAM (in a previous Win2K workstation, based on a high end Tyan motherboard) and after a couple years it started getting odd crashes, I traced this down to a faulty memory DIMM.  ECC mode had been on the whole time, and it might have been correcting some of the issues, but in the end it could not correct all the problems.  However, I was given no reasonable diagnostic error that said something like "ECC detected more errors than it can correct, do you want to jump under a bus now?".

 

So, unless there is some reporting of errors that are detected and corrected, it might just delay when the uncorrected errors start to affect your data (which would be of some benefit I suppose).  It would be more valuable to me if I got notification on the first detection and correction event since a reboot - that way I would know that I had a faulty DIMM as soon as possible (and while the ECC can still correct the issue) so that I could replace it.

 

I seem to recall that the Tyan motherboard had an option to halt on detection of errors, but that was a rather drastic way of notifying one!

 

Regards,

 

Stephen

 

[gfjardim]

ECC is likely a good thing to have in a 24/7 server, and most AMD processors and some motherboards (Asus mostly) support them. I don't see why not have an unRAID server with them, if you can. My Asus M4A87TD/USB3 support them:

 

4 x DIMM, Max. 16 GB, DDR3 2000(O.C.)/1600/1333/1066 ECC,Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory

 

If Lime-Tech improve virtualization capabilities and compatibility of unRAID, I can see wonderful applications for a Xeon/ESXi based server, but if you run only unRAID on it, seems a little waste of money.

[madburg]

Intel I3 support unbuffered ECC memory, depend what board you have, it does not support Fully Buffered ECC though.